facilitating in the Clinton Global Initiative Asia meeting in Hong Kong

[Raffi Aftandelian]

[friends, i'm posting this piece on behalf of our irrepressible
globe-trotting Alan Stewart, who like some of us shares the incurable,
chronic if harmless "I-can't-post-to-the-OSlist-syndrome." happy reading! -
wroffi ]

Dear OS Friends all around our little planet

 

Last week I had the privilege of being a volunteer facilitator at the
Clinton Global Initiative Asia 

(http://www.clintonglobalinitiative.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?pid=2356&srcid=-2)

held in Hong Kong. This meeting was to provide an opportunity for Asia's
most influential leaders to come together and take action to solve the
region’s most pressing issues.

 

This inaugural CGI Asia was reportedly very successful. "At the close of the
meeting, there were already 250 new commitments unveiled, valued at $8
billion to improve 158 million lives. These numbers will only continue to
rise," according to the Program Coordinator, CGI, Hong Kong.

Here are several related thoughts that you may find interesting and of
value. I have written a more comprehensive report of my experiencing of the
event which is available on request.

 

This meeting was attended by invited 'members' - people who are among Asia's
'elite', being leaders of government, civil society ie NGOs (Non Government
Organisations), corporate sector and philanthropists. There was about 400 of
these members present.


The meeting had the format of diverse plenary and three simultaneous
'Working Sessions': Education, Energy and Climate Change, and Public Health.
The purpose of the latter components was to enable members to engage in
conversation in small groups about these issues, with the underpinning
notion in mind of 'What action may I take?' 

 

Facilitators were chosen to facilitate these conversations. Those picked had
professional credentials in one of the three areas. As a bonus they also had
experience in facilitation. I was selected to facilitate in the Public
Health sessions as I have a background as an academic in nutrition and in
primary health care.

 

There were a couple of training sessions for all the facilitators, one about
a fortnight and the other the day prior to the conference. The basic premise
was that 'Our role is to co-create the context for members to express in a
public forum what they feel to be important - and to spark off each other.'

 

What became evident to me is that few of those selected to perform this role
in any of the three components had much experience of facilitating.
Seemingly the person conducting the training - who is not a facilitator -
also appreciated this and asked me to make a few comments.

 

And so I introduced these ideas:

 

1. There are principles which underpin any meeting in which people come
together for the purpose of creating constructive outcomes, viz

 

The principles of OST.

 

And emphasised that "You are the right people to be undertaking this role."

 

2. The opportunity for the people in each working session to engage with
each other only happens once in human history.

We sometimes need a reminder of this element of 'Now' ...

 

3. There are particular actions to take to encourage people who wish to
contribute. 

 

A.L.A.N. <smile>

 

Ask, Listen, Admire, Now (or Note)

 

This is the gift of my friend Mike Sands in Vancouver - a lovely connection
made for Mike and me by Doug Germann following
WOSonOS in San Francisco.  

There is a fourth point that I made later to some of the facilitators. This
was the design of the meeting as a whole was to promote 'conversing' - from
Latin **con versare: to turn or to dance together,** with the starting
premise of 'We are here to treat each other well.'

This thought was triggered by one of the keynote presenters making the
statement that he "enjoyed debate and wished the gathering great debating."
I took issue with this comment in that, in my opinion, the members were not
present to engage in point scoring or looking for weaknesses in others'
perspectives - just some of the implications of the adversarial stance
denoted by using the term 'debate.' Which does have its place, but not in
this context.

My sense is that the facilitators - about 50 in total - found these ideas
useful, not least in reducing their anxiety. For quite a few of them
expressed this to me during the course of the conference. Incidentally when
I asked the group "Have you have heard of Open Space Technology?" only one
person raised a hand.
 

I wonder if you 'see' that these OST 'ways of being', gifted to us by
Harrison and other spaceniks and our associates, may be  applicable generally?


Go well

Love

Alan


Alan Stewart, PhD
Chairman

Mob: +852 9438 7680
Em: alan at multimindsolutions.com
Web: www.multimindsolutions.com 

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